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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Thoughtful Branches will NOT be returning in any future catalog with Stampin' Up! I hope that you have your set already because today is the day to buy! They are not guaranteed after today (they are while supplies last) so make sure you get your own copy of this beautiful, versatile bundle!

If you would like your copy, I'd love to send you a gift for purchasing the set through me. Please use hostess code: SM4QQ3KS at check out and make sure you do nothave the "no contact" box checked. I need to know where to send a gift :)

You may have seen a few of my cards that I made with this set but I'll be honest - I didn't get to use it as much as I had hoped. It will certainly be one that I hold onto though! If you need more inspiration, the Stampin' Up! Artisan Design Team have done a few blog hops featuring only this bundle and you will be amazed. So much talent!

Here is the card I made with the fun tree cut out. I love the look of the leaves! This card was pretty quick and simple to make too.

What really caught my eye with this set is the font. I absolutely love it!

A close up of the leaves and bird... Love the dimension of this set!

I also wanted to share my cute board! Right now it's working perfectly for my background for photos, but I really want to use it as a headboard or put some shelves on it for plants. I found it in a pile of "free" stuff on the side of the road! Score :)

I hope you all have a great rest of the week! Check back Sept 1st for new SPECIAL DEALS from SU! and the start of the new (AMAZING) holiday catalog!!! :)

Friday, August 26, 2016

Happy Friday everyone! This week seemed to go by so fast! I'm sure the reason for me is that we were camping through Tuesday and then I had to rush to get things ready for my stamp class last night! It sure felt like time was flying..

Since it's Friday - that means we have another challenge for you over at TGIF Challenges. It's time to CASE your favorite card, designer, challenger from the month of August.

One of my current favorite sets from this year's annual catalog is called Feather Together. I absolutely love the feathers and the sentiments are great too! I've been making a lot of cards with this set lately. I made a few for the blog hop I posted on Tuesday and I decided to do another for my card class last night. I really liked the card that my fellow design team member Cathy Caines made for TGIFC67. You can see it here.

I liked the multi-colored feathers that Cathy used. I knew I wanted to create something similar with the feathers, so I used the baby wipe technique and added drops of Flirty Flamingo, Peekaboo Peach and Sweet Sugarplum inks to a baby wipe (folded a few times to give it cushion). I splattered the background with an Aqua Painter with Elegant Eggplant to coordinate with the sentiment.

This was quick and simple to make. We made this card last night and all seven of us were able to get feathers on our cards without adding more drops to the baby wipes. (I used about 12-15 drops of each color.)

Hope you join the fun over at TGIF! We love to see everyone's creations.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Welcome to the International Blog Hop hosted by the uber talented Kylie Bertucci! We are a group of international stampers that have all participated in one of Kylie's Blog Highlights and we were chosen favorites (by vote) and now we have the honor of hopping together! If you would like to participate in Kylie's next blog highlight, be sure to check out her page this Friday (Aug 27th).

Currently you are at Holly's Hobbies - that's me! I live in the USA (Minnesota) and have been a demo for almost 2 years. I'm happily married to Shawn and we have 3 little boys - oldest starts Kindergarten in a few weeks! Yikes! My craft room is where I get a little "me time". I love to stamp and think Stampin' Up! has the best products out there! If you are in the Minnesota area, I'd love to help you with any SU! need you have or maybe even have you join me for one of my monthly classes!

So this month's theme was "blogger's choice" and I wanted to highlight one of my favorite techniques. As I said earlier, I have 3 little kids - 1 still in diapers - so I seem to always have baby wipes! If you have never done the baby wipe technique, it's pretty simple. I took 2 baby wipes, folded it in fours (this gives it some cushion) and add drops of reinker to make a custom ink pad. Here I used Dapper Denim and Emerald Envy.

I love this Feather Together set - it's great for masculine cards! The "to a true gentleman" fits perfectly in the Classic Label punch.

Doesn't this technique make great feathers?? :)

I also wanted to show you a few other cards I made with the feathers. Didn't want to waste the ink that was left on the baby wipe.

I'm so glad you stopped by! I hope you liked the cards I made!

If you arrived from the amazingly talented Sue Vine and I'm grateful you continued on to me. I love Sue's style - always something worthy of CASing! Next is Louise Sharp - and let me just say I feel like I've accomplished a blogging goal - being on a blog hop with Louise! Her style is soft, subtle and sophisticated - she's one of my faves!

But, I assure you, you will notice as you make your way around the hop that everyone here is talented and they all have great styles and will inspire you! So make sure you check out the list at the end and visit everyone.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Welcome to our bi-monthly hop! We are a group of international stampers that blog the first and third Monday of each month - highlighting a specific stamp set. This month we are focusing on the Jar of Love stamp set. I have made a few cards with this set - mainly showing the beautiful flowers and framelits - so this time I thought I'd try something with the fish.

Our neighbor (the same one who's daughter just got married Saturday) are really becoming empty-nesters, as their son is leaving for college tomorrow. I thought we would send him off with something homemade. We have an abundance of zucchini right now, so banana zucchini bread it is!

These new 6x17" gusseted bags are in the new holiday catalog and are HUGE! But, they're perfect for loaves of homemade bread or a bottle of wine.

I wanted to keep the card masculine and thought this was a simple enough card for a young guy.

I added a little Peekaboo Peach splatter to add a little something to the large white space.

I hope you like both projects! This Jar of Love bundle is really great with endless possibilities. Make sure to make your way around the entire hop. You can go back to the lovely Val (you may see her awesome work on the SU! Artisan Design Team) or you can go in order and continue on to the very talented Heidi!

Friday, August 12, 2016

Happy Friday! This week as flown by and I can hardly believe the weekend is here. I have been helping my neighbor's daughter with her wedding planning. We finished 158 wedding favors yesterday (you can see them here) - needless to say, I've been swamped this week!

But I did have a few minutes to make 2 cards for this week's challenge over TGIF Challenges!

This is a fairly simple sketch. Will you join us?

I am highlighting a new bundle from the upcoming SU! Holiday Catalog. The star thinlits are so intricate and beautiful and the sentiments from the set are just lovely. I can't wait to make some more cards with this set.

When I saw this week's sketch I knew I wanted to use this cluster of small stars across the card front. Looks like the Milky Way to me. I embossed both to give the card some detail and dimension.

The first card I made uses 2 of the thinlits - one solid, one intricate. I wanted to make a 3D star with the vellum star - I've seen them before but never really tried one.

You might think that the foil here is gold, but it's actually copper! Another great product coming out in the new catalog - matches the Copper Emboss Powder perfectly! :)

Here's a different angle for the vellum star. I adhered it to the card base by using one dimensional in the middle. I knew it was getting covered up by the copper star, so I didn't mind that I'd see it at first.

The second card I made is sort of flip-flopped. I wanted to see if I liked a blue based card better and... I don't, hah! But, I still do like it. I just think the white one is nicer, that's all. :)

I do love this Copper Foil sheets and I'm so glad I saw it the second time through the catalog!

I hope you like them both!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have time this week to play along with our challenge at TGIF Challenges! Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

This week is super busy for me as I am still working on 175 wedding favors for Saturday. I'm basically swamped. But I did have a moment the other night to play with some new goodies that I received last week and I wanted to share with you what I made. I don't know why I waited over a year to buy the Gift Card Envelope & Trim Thinlits. They made these projects so simple and quick!

You might not recognize this Designer Series Paper (DSP) either - this is a new paper stack coming out in the SU! Holiday Catalog called Warmth & Cheer DSP. It was love at first sight!

I actually bought two packs. One I plan on using for Christmas gift tags and the rest for masculine cards. The colors and prints are so great - especially for guy cards! So here I decided to pair the DSP up with two "guy" stamp sets - The Wilderness Awaits and Feather Together.

I used my blender pen to color the animals...

If you like this DSP you can order Sept 1st as a customer, or join my team today and order before the catalog goes live to the public!

Monday, August 8, 2016

I hope you all had a great weekend! I'm helping make the favors for my neighbor's daughter who is getting married next weekend. Surprisingly enough though, I've had some time to play with some new stamps!

When you see those three colors, you certainly don't think Christmas right? Well, I thought I'd mix things up a little and try something fun!

This new background stamp set is called Merry Medley and I love love love it! I love bold, graphic prints - like subway signs - so I knew I had to have this stamp! Here I stamped the image in Basic Grey and adhered it to a Smoky Slate card base.

I added some Flirty Flamingo snowflakes with the Stitched with Cheer stamp set. The sentiment is made from the same set.

Another awesome new product in the Holiday Catalog are these Fancy Frost Sequins - they're actually Soft Sky, Sweet Sugarplum and White Gold but I thought they coordinated nicely!

I hope you enjoyed a sneak peek! I would love to see some more of you join us at TGIF Challenges! You have a few days to link up!

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Welcome to the Creation Station blog hop! The first Sunday of the month I join a group of stampers from around the world for a blog hop featuring current Stampin' Up! products. We usually have a theme or try to highlight certain stamp sets. This month we are focusing on "Get Well" cards and projects. SU! has come out with a lot of really great sets for this (Here for You or the cute little umbrellas from Weather Together are perfect). However, I wanted to show you some brand new product that you can order starting September 1st!

So let's get to it! If you came from the amazingly talented Cindy Schuster - thank you for continuing on to me! It's hard to fill an Artisan's shoes, but I'll certainly try! :)

The set I am using today is a new (Christmas/holiday) set called Wrapped in Warmth. I want to show you how you can use the one stamp in this set for a get well card.

The stamp set is full of cute sentiments and fun stitched images and coordinates perfectly with this new embossing folder called Cable Knit. It is awesome! I know when I'm sick, I like to grab a blanket and curl up on the couch. My boys love to snuggle too which is probably why MOM always catches whatever they have!

Here's a closer look of this embossing folder. It really takes the 3D look to a whole new level!

Another awesome thing that SU! will be offering their customers are 2 packs of markers! There are a few packs (colors pre-selected) that are available in the new holiday catalog. One pack in particular is Cherry Cobbler and Crumb Cake! Here I added some ink with my Delightful Dijon marker - really makes the sentiment fun with different colors!

Did you notice the plaid designer paper? Talk about coziness!! I ordered two packs of the Warmth and Cheer DSP stacks. You will LOVE IT!

Now normally when I'm sick, I don't want cookies, but since it's too hot to make soup and cookies can be eaten any time of year, I opted to make cookies. Plus, I suppose "get well" could be for those having a bad day too so cookies work, right? :)

I wanted the tag to coordinate with the card so I incorporated the stitching along the Delightful Dijon border. I added the heart from the same DSP. The "get well soon" is from the Layered Alphabet stamp set.

For the lid you may notice another new stamp! This is another sneak peek at a new set called Yummy Little Christmas. I love to bake and give homemade goodies at Christmas (and all year round) so I had to have these little whisks! They're shaped like a snowflake too!

I sure hope you enjoyed what I made and the sneak peek at some upcoming product! Please make your way around the blog hop! A lot of the team are off enjoying some summertime fun, but I know you won't be disappointed - even if it is a shorter hop!

You can head back to the lovely Cindy, or click next to jump across the Atlantic to my talented friend Julie!

Happy stamping everyone :)

Be blessed and be a blessing!

-Holly

**If you're currently looking for a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, I'd love to help! If you'd like a holiday catalog or annual catalog, comment below :) I live in the central MN area and hold 2 classes a month.**